PAN Magazine Archive

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama signaled his renewed commitment to push free trade agreements through Congress. But civil society organizations across the world are speaking out louder than ever in firm opposition to the secretive negotiations of the two global trade agreements now on the table: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
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On June 5, 2014, Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific, partnering with PAN North America, launched a global campaign to phase out 20 highly hazardous pesticides particularly dangerous to children.
The Terrible Twenty are linked to cancers, brain damage, birth defects and asthma, among others. The campaign will target policy makers in strategic Asian countries and North America with a call for a permanent moratorium on use of the Terrible Twenty...Read more

Finally, there’s movement to strengthen U.S. rules—notoriously weak and difficult to enforce— that protect farmworkers and their families. Meanwhile, farmworkers, growers, retailers and allies are launching a ground-breaking initiative modeling how to work together to grow food safely, fairly and profitably.
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Let’s have a public debate about the Trans Pacific Partnership. If you’re like me, you’ve known for a while that the U.S. is negotiating a new pact called the Trans Pacific Partnership, the TPP, but you haven’t taken the time to figure out exactly why it matters. I don’t blame us—the corporations and governments negotiating the deal don’t want our opinions slowing down their shiny new “free trade”...Read more

This fall, you, PAN and our movement stood up to the world’s largest pesticide and genetically engineered (GE) seed corporations. Their political clout is faltering, and their grip on our food system is weaker today because we’ve faced them together at the ballot box, in legislative bodies and in court to demand a fair, green and sustainable food system.
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Five of the world’s six largest GE seed and pesticide corporations—BASF, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta—are using prime farmland on the Hawai’ian islands to test new GE crops. Their experimental plots are displacing smaller farmers and driving up the use of health harming pesticides.
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With your support, PAN and our allies have kept the pressure on EPA to protect bees. We helped file more than two million public comments and a legal petition with two dozen beekeepers—and yet the agency continues to drag its feet. Now we’re taking EPA to court.
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Thanks to you and all the PAN members who have signed petitions, donated and spoken to friends countless times over the past year, there will be no 2,4-D-resistant corn planted in 2013. This is very good news for farmers and rural communities. Together, we’ve kept Dow AgroSciences’ controversial new genetically engineered (GE) crop out of American fields for another year.
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By 1982, the luster of industrial agriculture—the so-called “Green Revolution”—had faded in developing countries. The promised dramatic increases in yields from “miracle” hybrid grains that required high inputs of water, chemical fertilizers and pesticides failed to deliver and were revealed as campaigns to sell technology to people who couldn’t afford it. Local communities were losing control over their own food...Read more

Today’s children are sicker than children were two generations ago. From learning disabilities and autism to childhood cancers and more, a startling number of diseases and disorders are on the rise. And the science leaves little room for doubt: pesticides and other toxic chemicals are contributing to our children’s ill health.
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On March 20, Pesticide Action Network and partners won a six-year effort to stop methyl iodide. Despite aggressive pesticide industry attempts to introduce the cancer-causing pesticide, science and common sense held sway.
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PAN's Winter 2012 newsletter reports on the Permanent People's Tribunal and its indictment of the Big 6 pesticide corporations for human rights abuses. Also, the launch of the new Honey Bee Haven site is announced. Honey Bee Haven is a site where friends of pollinators not only pledge support, but can also interact with the site and map their own honey bee haven.
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PAN's Year End 2011 newsletter reports on progress to keep the carcinogenic fumigant methyl iodide out of strawberry fields despite the efforts of a corporate juggernaut. We also celebrate World Food Day and provide a link to the many people who uploaded their personal stories to PAN's Tumblr site on how the Big 6 GMO/pesticide corporations affect their lives. It delves in the causes of honey bee die-off (colony collapse disorder), and includes...Read more

Our Fall 2011 PAN newsletter reports on work with several large food companies to push for fairness in the fields by adopting standards that will reduce pesticide use, guarantee workers’ rights and improve working conditions. The issue also tells of more than 6,000 members who wrote personal notes thanking farmers across the country who are growing food without hazardous chemicals, and a Colorado member who organized a flash mob for bees!
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This Spring 2011 issue of PAN’s member newsletter celebrates a major victory: the neurotoxic insecticide endosulfan was listed for global phaseout under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants! PAN and our allies fought 17 years to get highly hazardous pesticide like endosulfan banned — it marks our 10th victory under the “POPs treaty”. We also report that over 1 million people have joined the campaign to save...Read more

In this first issue of the PAN newsletter, we highlight three campaigns that share a common focus: undoing corporate capture of government policy, science, food and farming. And we reinforce how important it is that together, we engage in actions, small to large, that democratize food and farming. This lighter-weight newsletter replaces our magazine, allowing us to communicate more frequently while conserving human and natural resources. Let us know...Read more

By PAN’s analysis, the key strategic task of this moment is to gather strength and momentum—build power—to engage in the public struggle for America’s values with truth and compelling stories, and redouble our efforts where mega-corporations have the least influence: local organizing and movement building. In this issue we call for reclaiming our democratic roots and gathering our friends to build power for change from the ground...Read more

In this issue, we share the latest science showing the health risks of pesticides borne by us all, which strike close to home for too many: cancer, learning disabilities, diabetes, Parkinson’s. We also share the stories of pesticide risk borne by people around the world, detailed in PAN’s new global report, Communities in Peril. PAN seeks healthier food systems that rely on human ingenuity, ecological understanding and a healthy dose of...Read more

Chemicals policy must catch up with modern science – ending the decades-long toxic experiment in failing public health. If we so choose, we can stimulate the safest, greenest technologies possible, and incentivize innovation that bears fruit for the many without holding public health hostage in the bargain. We know that it’s time for our food systems to be controlled by farmers, consumers and farmworkers—rather than a handful of giant...Read more

In this issue of the PAN Magazine you’ll find science, analysis and stories at the nexus of agriculture, pesticides and climate change. We detail the links between farming systems and climate, and the impacts climate change will have on global toxics. The good news is that ecological agriculture and food sovereignty—solutions PAN and our partners have been promoting for decades as the antidote to pesticide and corporate dependence—can...Read more

We stand at a unique moment in time. One that offers the an opportunity to leave a healthy legacy for our children and our planet. The stories in this issue—from young activists, PAN campaigners, and mothers with growing children—are told with a fierce determination to create a better world. The stories affirm some common understandings: We have seen firsthand the harm that pesticides do to people and the earth. We know we cannot continue on...Read more